As any major awards ceremony approaches, you'll find a clamor to include fresh award types to recognize unsung work and satisfy the hearts of fans dedicated to specific genres.
Another commentator previously argued supporting a scary games classification. That would be fantastic. Equally deserving are strategy board titles, this being someone's personal cause. But they will have to forgive me for pushing forward because like all single-minded supporters, I possess a compelling case supporting my request stands as crucial above others. This is the request: We need an award type for logic-based games.
Categorizing Game Types
Organizing artistic expressions defies precise measurement; opinions vary greatly, and it will always spark debates and end in fuzzy definitions. This explains why movie academies don’t do it. Yet it remains a necessary evil for the industry of interactive entertainment, which are so diverse it's challenging to consider them one unified medium.
To recognize the complete range of interactive entertainment excellence to gain proper attention, and for games of all stripes to have a chance for representation, genre categories are essential.
Current Gaming Award Categories
Prominent interactive entertainment events currently feature classifications covering Action-oriented games, Action/Adventure, RPG experiences, Fighting, Simulation and strategy titles, and Sports/Racing games. Collectively, these six categories actually cover numerous genres, making space possible accommodating various experiences.
This doesn't apply to logic-based experiences. No appropriate category exists for their placement. Consider three of this year’s best games, showing diverse approaches: building puzzles from a specific release, intense tile-matching of another game, thought-provoking social scenarios of a third title. Which classification works between these six categories? Unfortunately, nowhere.
The Representation Problem
Numerous examples exist excellent brain-teasers published annually without proper recognition at major award shows, if they accidentally match award groups including Mobile Game, Virtual reality experiences, or the intensely contested independent game categories.
- One classic puzzle game got overlooked completely in 2014
- A different innovative game received no nominations that year
- Well-received sorting experience was overlooked that year
- Only a few puzzle games barely qualified for niche award types
Value of Brain-Teasers
These are often small games, yet the craft of the puzzle game holds tremendous importance. Well-known matching games count as most engaged experiences globally maintaining this status for over a decade.
The legendary block-stacking game competes with famous sandbox experiences competing to become best-selling game of all time; it’s also in the running for top gaming experience. Puzzle games are foundational within interactive entertainment, and they are in conversation with almost every other genre.
Proposal and Rationale
Puzzle games wouldn’t have this problem. You could fill a field of five with fascinating, diverse, deserving games each ceremony simply — perhaps, with difficulty, since numerous excellent numerous deserving experiences.
And to reiterate, these represent titles lacking appropriate categories at major gaming awards. Logic title developers operate at the hard edge of video game design, developing some of the purest expressions within interactive entertainment. Just like movie stunt professionals, they deserve recognition. We shouldn't delay 35 years.
